The accident in Mainz brings back more painful memories of Dortmund’s failure

Photo: Uwe Kraft/AFP/Getty Images

Not them again, already. Mainz has already defined Borussia Dortmund’s 2023 once and now that the year is coming to a deflationary end in Westphalia, they are in danger of doing so again. Sunday’s traditional Christmas gathering at Signal Iduna Park, with carols and spectacle for a crowd of 73,056, may have meant a moratorium on grumbling and worry for a team that has gone from moving history to sleepwalking through winter. But 48 hours later, at the same location, the concerns tripled again.

“It’s just not working at the moment,” said captain Emre Can after dropping even more points on Tuesday, and there’s no arguing with that after Dortmund extended their current run in the Bundesliga to just one win in eight – and no wins in the series. the last four. Seven months on from the 05ers’ last visit, a match that will haunt Dortmund for decades to come as the Bundesliga title slipped through their shell-shocked fingers, it was not comparable in terms of losses. The draw against Mainz in early spring had been disastrous and was more a symptom than a cause. However, this second draw underscored how difficult the lingering effects of the first still are.

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If Mainz were to be the harbinger of doom again – and what a week of bringing back painful memories it has been for those of the BVB persuasion, with now-Augsburg goalkeeper Finn Dahmen denying them three points on Saturday, having already had kept at bay on that fateful day in May – they were just the backdrop to this nativity scene. The drama produced was all Dortmund’s, just as it was in that desperate climax of their title dream.

Mainz is having a hard time, now that Bo Svensson has left and Jan Siewert is leading the team in the meantime. They found themselves in 16th place, the relegation play-off berth, and were almost spectators early on. Julian Brandt’s delightful free-kick to break the deadlock was but a small expression of the extent of the home side’s dominance, with Jamie Bynoe-Gittins and (after the Brandt goal) Marcel Sabitzer pinging for aluminium.

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But as with most years in the post-Jurgen Klopp era, an act of self-sabotage always feels like it’s in the mail. The concession of a shabby goal to Sepp van den Berg from a set piece just before the break sent the teams back to the dressing rooms on level terms, and doubts set in. There were chances to grab a much-needed win for Dortmund before the end, but it wouldn’t have really been deserved given the balance of the game in the second half. “It is an unsatisfactory end to an unsatisfactory first half of the season,” Brandt bluntly summarized afterwards. Can’s comments on Dortmund’s current stagnation were not a bull’s-eye for the coach, but there is little escaping those who put the money on listless, formless performances.

The last time BVB dumped a coach mid-season was when Lucien Favre was shown the door in mid-December 2020 after a 5-1 defeat at home to Stuttgart, heralding the first Terzić era and keeping the seat warm for Marco Rose’s arrival the following summer. The manner in which that particular implosion in front of the Yellow Wall took place brought longstanding fears to a head, but it’s worth noting that Favre’s team were just two points behind the top four when he was removed. Today, Dortmund is six points behind fourth-place Leipzig. That Germany is currently in pole position to be one of two countries to receive five Champions League places in next season’s reshuffled competition is no source of consolation.

Terzić can argue that his record of strong second halves of the season bodes well; Remember, his team finished sixth at the Winter Break last year and still went into the final game of the season with the title in their own hands, as well as his DfB Pokal win to hammer Leipzig in the 2021 finals in the interim. There is also empathy from the top down, with the coach’s unconditional support so far from CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke, who has underlined the emotional difficulty of trying to move past last season’s ultimate heartbreak, not to mention the losing their best player in Jude Bellingham. . Watzke has consistently emphasized that Terzić will be the coach for the duration of the match, “full stop”.

Werder Bremen 1-1 RB Leipzig, Dortmund 1-1 Mainz, Hoffenheim 3-3 Darmstadt, Union Berlin 2-0 Köln, Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 Borussia Mönchengladbach, Heidenheim 3-2 Freiberg, Stuttgart 3-0 Augsburg, Leverkusen 4- 0 Bochum, Wolfsburg 1-2 Bayern Munich

He, sporting director Sebastian Kehl and advisor Matthias Sammer will meet this week to discuss the future, and it is not yet certain that they will take their time. But even when Watzke is forced into a decision he would rather not make, the problems run deeper. There is also pressure on Kehl, whose recruitment has done little to address the roster’s imbalances or weaknesses. Yet a lack of joined-up thinking in recruitment predates his arrival in the summer of 2022. The feeling that everyone has seen this before was reinforced by the disappointing TV ratings for the Mainz game, with a modest 2.9 million viewers on Saturday 1 for the latest free film. -to-air game of the year, the channel’s lowest audience for a live game this season.

Terzić’s performance on the pitch during Sunday’s Christmas show, as he walked through to You’ll Never Walk Alone with his daughters, underlined everything he is. A good clubman, there with his people, where he belongs. If he does leave, it will hurt, for him and for the club. The problem is that the next incumbent won’t have a magic wand to fix all this, and BVB knows it.

Discussion points

• Greetings Leverkusen, top and still undefeated heading into Christmas after a first part of the season that even the unflappable Xabi Alonso could never have dreamed of. They signed off on 2023 with a 4-0 defeat of Bochum, which gave strong clues as to how they might cope without a group of players, led by Victor Boniface, who left for the Africa Cup of Nations in January. Patrik Schick started in place of Bonifatius and helped himself to a hat-trick. “With this quality behind me, with Florian [Wirtz] and Jonas [Hofmann]it is very easy to score goals,” Schick told Sky. “It’s a dream for attackers.”

• As against Stuttgart, Bayern got through the game in Wolfsburg despite a number of walking wounded – including Raphaël Guerreiro, who, according to Thomas Tuchel, “spent the whole night in the toilet” but performed excellently in midfield. Harry Kane’s long-range strike (goal No. 21 in the Bundesliga) proved to be the winner after Max Arnold unexpectedly pulled the score back to 2-1, forcing the champions to intervene after the break, which they did. “I think many players are happy that there is a little break now,” said Manuel Neuer with some understatement.

• Stuttgart, meanwhile, goes into a mini-hibernation in third place after thrashing Augsburg 3-0, with Serhou Guirassy scoring his 17th of the season.

• Hooray for Heidenheim too, with the Bundesliga debutants sitting in ninth place after another thrilling comeback win, recovering twice to beat Freiburg. “It’s sensational,” coach Frank Schmidt said of his side’s 20-point win, significant in a season in which the bottom six have so far managed with one point per game or less. “Nobody believed we could do this.”